Duhallow In Late October

The fields by the Blackwater River from overnight frost looking gray
And heavy low clouds tell rain not far away
The salmon are swimming up river to spawn
In the chilly silence of an October dawn
Though Winter to Duhallow is drawing near
The weather quite chilly for the time of year
The stormwater gurgling in the roadside drain
Duhallow could do with four months without rain
In the wet fields in view of Clara hardly any grass at all
The cattle will be in sheds early this Fall
Six months at the least till near prime of the Spring
Till the nesting songbirds will whistle and sing
And the swallows will fly o’er the old fields again
But till then weeks of frost and snow and storm driven rain.

by Francis Duggan